May 1, 1996 International Labor Day!

At the end of April, the rural areas of central Yunnan have entered the busiest season of the year. In the field where the small spring crops have just been harvested, the tense spring plowing production is in full swing. Just after planting the rice in the fields in the dam area, the corn sowing in the mountainous areas, flue-cured tobacco transplanting and other farm work followed.

Central Yunnan is a region with relatively good economic development in Caiyun Province, and its unique natural geographical environment makes the quality of flue-cured tobacco grown in central Yunnan the best in the country. There are many areas where flue-cured tobacco was introduced and cultivated earlier than central Yunnan, and the planting area is larger than that of central Yunnan. However, the best intrinsic quality of flue-cured tobacco is in central Yunnan, which is a natural advantage that cannot be filled by manpower. The country's largest tobacco group was also born in central Yunnan, and the local economy in central Yunnan mainly relies on the two tobacco economies of flue-cured tobacco cultivation and cigarette production.

The research on flue-cured tobacco naturally derived from the economy of the two tobaccos, flue-cured tobacco planting, flue-cured tobacco acquisition, tobacco storage, tobacco transportation, deep processing of flue-cured tobacco, cigarette production, packaging materials and printing of related ancillary processing industries、...... The emergence of a series of industrial chains has made the economic status of central Yunnan second only to the provincial capital Chuncheng.

Crops are famous for their geography, and the local people depend on them for their survival, and there are too many of them around the world. The so-called one side of the water and soil to support the other side of the people, and the harmonious coexistence of man and nature is the way of human survival.

Qi Jingtao, who works in a tobacco company, also knows that the two-tobacco economy is unique, and the country's monopoly system on tobacco knows the huge profits of the tobacco industry. The tobacco farmers at the end of the industrial chain are the hardest, most dependent on the weather, the most basic and the weakest link, and they are also the part of the people who make the least profits. After a year of hard work, all they can leave is a meager amount of hard-earned money.

In the absence of better alternative crops, local villages can only rely on flue-cured tobacco cultivation to increase their economic income.

In central Yunnan at this time, the income from flue-cured tobacco cultivation was the main source of economic income in the local rural areas. Although the income of growing flue-cured tobacco is higher than that of other crops, it is also one of the most labor-intensive crops, and the agricultural production time cycle is as long as seven or eight months.

Tobacco farmers plant flue-cured tobacco, after the Spring Festival every year to begin to cultivate tobacco seedlings, begin to transplant the field in May, enter the harvest period of flue-cured tobacco from mid-July to October, and begin to harvest tobacco leaves in batches according to the maturity of each tobacco leaf, concentrate on tobacco leaf roasting, preliminary grading, and sell to the local tobacco company at the designated flue-cured tobacco purchase point to the local tobacco company.

In May, the central Yunnan region is in the dry season in normal years, and the weather is hot and sunny. Flue-cured tobacco transplanting can only be carried out in the afternoon, after transplanting water, after a night of moisturization, the next morning to water again, can resist the May sun roasting.

After transplanting, we must also insist on watering once a day in the morning or afternoon to maintain the life of tobacco seedlings until the rainy season in June, when the sky begins to rain to take over the watering work, and the flue-cured tobacco begins to enter the rapid growth period. Field management during this period is very critical, and fertilization, top dressing, and pest control cannot be wrong. The characteristics of flue-cured tobacco determine that it cannot be grown too fertile, otherwise the color cannot be changed during baking, the grade and quality cannot be improved, and it will become a low-grade tobacco leaf with no income. Nor can it grow too thin and have no yield.

In July and August, the central Yunnan region entered the season of many thunderstorms, God was not happy, and made a white dragon to cross the mountain, hail fell all over the sky, other crops may still have some harvests, and the tobacco leaves were absolutely lost, and even suffered a devastating blow.

This kind of frequent hail disasters occur every year, and the size and location of the area that occurs each time are different, and the tobacco farmers are gambling on luck when they plant flue-cured tobacco every year. Later, the local government organized relevant units to use artificial rainfall to prevent hail disasters, and insurance companies followed up and other measures were changed.

There can be no mistakes in the flue-cured tobacco baking process, and the baking process of the oven for seven or eight days is not well controlled, and the grade of a flue-cured tobacco is reduced, and all the cigarettes are scrapped.

The whole process of flue-cured tobacco agricultural production cannot be replaced by mechanization, and it is purely manual to follow, and the amount of manual input is very long and cumbersome. If the labor cost is calculated, the labor value of flue-cured tobacco planting is unbearably low.

On May 1, the International Labor Day holiday, Qi Jingtao still went home to help his family work - farm work as in previous years. This year, his father is going to plant two acres of flue-cured tobacco, and the land has been turned over and leveled. As soon as the tobacco was pulled, I was ready to take advantage of the May Day holiday for my son and daughter to go home, and the whole family mobilized to start the annual flue-cured tobacco transplanting.

In May, the days are long and the weather is sunny and hot, so the planting time can only be concentrated in the morning and evening when the temperature is low. Wearing the stars and wearing the moon, getting up early and returning late, and resting at home with high temperatures during the day, this has also become a habit of labor and rest in rural areas of central Yunnan to adapt to the weather.

Qi Jingtao didn't even return to his newly rented house after getting off work yesterday, and went to No. 1 Middle School to pick up his sister and rushed home. After lunch, I went up the mountain with my parents to pull tobacco moisture and prepare for today's flue-cured tobacco transplanting. As soon as it was dawn today, Qi Jingtao and his parents went up the mountain, pulled the last piece of tobacco moisture, and waited for the afternoon to go up the mountain to complete the transplanting.

Qi Jingtao had lunch, finished reading the Chinese mock test questions that Qi Lin completed in the morning, looked at the time, and went upstairs to stare at Qi Lin, who was in the sprint review stage of the college entrance examination, to continue to do the exercises.

"Brother, it's hot, people are sleepy, so I made a set of languages in the morning. Let the family take a nap a little longer, and then do math, and in the afternoon, they will go up the mountain to plant smoke. ”

Qi Lin, who was called up from the bed by her brother, had a hazy face, and looked innocently at Qi Jingtao, who was holding a dozen review materials and staring at her.

"What sleepy, half an hour of sleep in the afternoon nap is enough, and you should also pay attention to the lunch break at school. Come, eat a few bayberry and wake up sleepy. Stick to it, and you will be treated as if you were simulating the college entrance examination. The college entrance examination was hotter in the past few days, and it was completed on time and in accordance with the amount within the specified time! In the afternoon, when you go up the mountain, you don't want to carry water and pour tobacco, and you go to the field to run, so you should go to the wind and exercise your body with work and rest. Qi Jingtao glared at the poor sister without pity, and lifted a fruit bowl from the table next to her and handed it to her.

Qi Lin picked up a sweet and sour bayberry fruit and bit it into her mouth, looking at the college entrance examination mock test questions in Qi Jingtao's hand with fear. She still wanted to get a chance to live, and said pitifully: "It's a small vacation, but our school also assigns a lot of homework, and we also need to finish it, and we don't have enough time, so we can't live, we can't live." ”

Qi Jingtao didn't eat her set, put the fruit plate on the desk, and said while picking up the test questions: "Senior high school students have no human rights! I think back then, our slogan was - no bitterness, no tiredness, no taste in the third year of high school; If you don't fight hard, it's equal to working in vain!"

"You think we don't have slogans - the head hangs on the beam, the cone is piercing, the women wave the book and the strange ambition; the three watches are hot, the five watches are chickens, and the eyebrows are written with a pen. It's no worse than yours!" Qi Lin finished chanting the slogan, as if she had recited a rejuvenation spell, she seemed to immediately have some energy, and looked at her brother with a smug face.